2019-03-07: Receiving the Mirror

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<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.

    She had agreed to meet them at Curan Abbey, according to her message. Perhaps the extra layer of subterfuge was unnecessary, at this juncture... but one couldn't be too careful under the circumstances.

    The Abbey is as quiet as it has ever been, removed by distance from the cares and woes of the dying world around it. This is not to say that the sisters at the Abbey do not have sympathy for or think of the world beyond the abbey walls, simply that the trials in Filgaia of late have not spread so far as to discolor even this place of peace.

    Avril meets them in the quiet of a rented traveler's room inside the abbey, safe -- perhaps -- from at least some prying eyes.

    "Then... you were successful," she asks, after closing the door quietly, her gaze lingering upon the ones she has hired to do this unpleasant business for her. It's almost as if she's inspecting them for some sign that they had met with ill fortune... and is relieved to find none. 

<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.

Lily Keil has been here before; she can appreciate the peace of the Abbey, even if the business they're on here is less than peaceful. They have places to go, soon--but for now...

Lily looks to the door as Avril closes it, waiting for the sound it makes when it settles into place, to the auditory cue that says no one is waiting outside.

Only then does she answers, "We were."

Then, "But you should know--they are aware of the theft. They acted as if it were some sort of sacred artifact; the Veruni called Elvis and another, a soldier whose name I don't know, identified as related to a 'Kaguya', spotted us before we were able to leave."

She thinks back to their literal flight out.

"But there's been no pursuit as yet." 

<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

Fei is happy to do this delivery since he nearly got murdered by some giant spear lady to get it, okay? It's honestly a little shocking--even with VR Factor in mind--to remember who her sister is.

"Sure were! They saw us before we left, though, and unfortunately Elvis was there so they knew who we were on top of it." Granted 'spear lady' would probably have found out quickly but it certainly means the mission wasn't WHOLLY successful. Would've been better to not get caught again.

Fei has some wounds still healing but they aren't anything major.

"I think this is my first time at Curan. So this is where Cecilia grew up, huh..."

He looks around a bit before adding, "Kaguya is this girl I know who was selling flowers and I think became some kind of warlord back up on Lunar. Probably not a problem we'll have to worry about anytime soon."

Definitely not in March or anything. 

<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.

Elly has a bandage on her head still at this point.

"... I don't really have much to add to what Lily and Fei said," Elly says, apologetically. "But I'm curious what it is that you wanted the mirror for, given..."

            'housekeeping!'

"Everything."

<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.

    The door closes with a solid thunk. Avril's hand lingers on it a moment, before leaving it behind.

    ...Perhaps make that, 'mostly uninjured'. Nothing that won't patch up with a little time, at least.

    Any relief she might have from knowing they were able to retrieve the mirror, though, is tempered by the statement that the Veruni know of the theft. "...I see," Avril murmurs, her gaze downcast. "Thank you. I will keep that in mind. I hope that none of you come to any harm because of this." She exhales a quiet breath.

    "I know little of the history of the mirror, save that it is quite old. As I understand it, they found it when excavating Mirapulse many years ago and thought it a good luck charm of a sort... until the Veruni came to claim it, only to find it missing." Pity Chuck and his endlessly poor timing.

    The fact that Elvis had been there... perhaps she can explain to him later, if the opportunity presents itself. Her expression gains a distant, vaguely troubled cast as Fei mentions him -- and Kaguya. Someone related to Kaguya...

    "May I see it? Perhaps that may answer your questions."
    Assuming, that is, that she's at least halfway right that she has some connection to the mirror.

    A knock comes at the door just then, perhaps interrupting the little meeting. Avril's eyes widen and she calls back, "Ah, would you come again later?" 

<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.

Lily shows no signs of injury. Not that that's unusual.

"It is," Lily answers Fei. "...I've been here a few times. It's peaceful." As for the mirror... She's naturally a bit curious, herself. Avril's concern prompts a quick answer, though, a slight shake of Lily's head. "Danger already follows us. That was true yesterday, and it will be true tomorrow."

She listens, though, to its history, such as it is. Found by accident--it's not exactly a strange story. The golden-eyed woman watches Avril--right up until the knock.

"Fei," she says, and it is one off those name drops that means, 'You have it, right?" but also means that Lily is watching the door. To her credit, she does not manifest any weapons inside the peaceful Abbbey...

But she's certainly watching just in case. 

<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

Fei says, "Hey, it was a risk we knew we were taking. Our paths may not always be the same but we're headed in the same direction. You're our friend, after all. And I appreciate you hired us rather than went after it with your own crew. From what I've been hearing it seems like you've got enough heat from those parts already."

He's not sure how much will be deflected by having another group steal a mirror for her, but he reaches into his bag to take the mirror out and offer it to Avril when--

--there's a knock. He quickly hands the mirror over to Avril and spins to face the door in case she needs to make a run for it.

He doesn't say anything. He just readies a hand in case, well...

...in case it's about as much housekeeping as he and Elly were. 

<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.

Elly's head bandage is more dramatic than it appears. She caught a stone chip while landing and the cut to her scalp, while not large or particularly perilous, was dramatically bloody. It will heal up fine, but she has too much hair to really want to shave it off there or drop a quick heal ether on it.

Vanity is strong... Appropriate, given the mirrors.

"They were keeping it in an unusual location, for the Veruni. At least... I assume it was an unusual location. It was open to the sky -" Then comes a knock at the door. Elly leans slightly forwards, looking towards the door.

She takes a deep breath.

<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.

    "All right. I'll come back around later," says the person on the other side of the door. Perhaps they can rest easy -- footsteps retreat down the hall a distance, perhaps to the next room over.

    Avril takes a step away from the door. "...Yes, that was a part of my reasoning. If we were to go after it and get caught, or even merely sighted..." She shakes her head. "Volsung does not know that I am with the Outreach, I believe. Otherwise I feel he would have already... paid a visit," she says. "For now, it is best to be cautious. I know not how far his reach may extend."

    The mirror is large, at least for a woman of Avril's size. Compared to the heights of the other Veruni they have crossed paths with -- with one exception -- she is rather on the smaller side.

    "Open to the sky... I see." Avril gazes down into the mirror's depths. Something beneath the glass seems to twinkle.

    The sun had not yet set that day. Dean, from a height, had been able to see that it still lingered on the horizon. Meanwhile the moon, still low in the sky, had shed its light softly.

    BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4R6lMeCZQU

    Light, in a steady nacreous shimmer, billows softly out of the depths of the mirror. As it had then, it does now. In her hands.

    Haven't they seen something like this before? With Riesenlied.

    "Oh... now I understand," Avril says.

    "This is the Ley... when it rests under the moon, it gathers the power of..."

    Her eyes widen. She stares down at the mirror, and slowly, by inches, her expression starts to soften.

    "...I made this," she explains, staring down into the depths of the shimmering mirror in her grasp. "I don't remember why, or how. I only know that I did." 

<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.

Lily has little to add from what Fei and Elly have said; it would just be repeating them. Once the door is secure, she instead listens along, arms back at hr sides as she watches. She remembers the size of the mirror, at least. "It makes sense. Having met Volsung, though--I doubt that he would concern himself with what we do regardless. You're the only one who concerns him. ...We may not be able to defeat him, but we can at least use that trait to our purposes.

Light billows out; it is brilliant, and Lily does recall when she's seen it. She feels it, she thinks. The moon...

Then lily pauses, looks over Avril again. "The Ley..." She pauses. "You made it," she repeats.

There are obvious reasons that that should be hard to believe. And yet...

"...A powerful object made by their Queen, that would explain why it's important... though I admit it raises other, different questions."

<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

Fei blinks a few times. "Huh." Fei says. "I thought for sure that was someone comin' to kill us."

He laughs a little, looking towards Elly. "You know it happens enough times and the one time it doesn't, that's when you're on guard and it still unsettles you."

He eases back in his chair, exhaling out a long breath before blinking a few times. He's not exactly the highest WITS score in the group here (and not the highest wits score either) but after a moment he seems to understand. "If the mirror can do something like that, I guess I can see why they'd call it sacred."

He studies Lily for a moment. It's not often that she seems to think there's an enemy they can't beat. This is Lily 'lady who wants to personally explodinate Solaris' Keil. This Volsung character must have made an impression.

"We'll have to be careful in the future about what we tell Elvis. Well, more careful." Fei mulls. "He's a good man but with where he is at, it might still be delivering information straight to the top."

...She really doesn't know.

"Yeah..." He says, though it's unclear who he is saying that to.

"Avril, you said some of us were familiar to you, right?" Fei asks. 

<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.

It isn't a kill squad! Hurray! Elly relaxes.

And then Avril reveals what this thing *is*. To some extent. When it rests under the moon, Elly thinks, it gathers the power of -

"You made it?!" Elly says, startled.

That was a little loud. In the shining pearl radiance coming from the thing, Elly feels vaguely abashed. Her hands fold behind her back. Lily says something about 'their queen,' which makes Elly glance at her, to Avril, back at Lily, back at Avril.

Then to Fei. Her lips purse together as if she's trying to freshen up her lip rouge.

Then back to Avril. To whom she smiles. "... Has there been anything else that seems familiar, or nostalgiac to you? If it helps, you're not... alone, in feelings like that. Not at all."

(More quietly, she says to Fei, "Do you think Elvis would do that? That could have advantages... though it's not a very nice way to think, and I know he has a daughter.")

<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

("I'm not sure," Fei admits. "But he still seems pretty loyal and even if he doesn't mean anything by it, it could still slip or put him in an awkward position.") DID he ever hear about the whole secret Queen thing? Maybe it's just a truth that feels natural so he doesn't question it. 

<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.

    Avril nods, her gaze tilted however briefly towards the floor. "I am afraid so. He does not have interest in much else but me, and I feel that he would stop at little to return me to my people should he know."

    He's desperate, she thinks. To have her under his control, a queen who remembered nearly nothing and thrust into the complex politics of the Veruni? ...Can it really just be that?

    In her grasp, the mirror continues to upend its stored power into the room, softly. Gently.

    "Yes. I still remember nothing at all from before I awoke in the Golem's hand," she says, answering their questions. "Yet I have this feeling... I know this mirror. Perhaps I even knew it back in Mirapulse. Now that I have experienced more, however, I can name the feeling more accurately for itself. I suppose you could say it is like 'knowing the back of one's hand'?" She tilts her head to one side, as if trying out that turn of phrase.

    "It is a strange thing. My body remembers more than my mind."

    And if this mirror had been found in an excavation site years ago, before she had even been found in the hand of a Golem near a little frontier town--
    If she made this mirror--
    Impossible. And yet...

    "Hm?" She glances over at Fei. "Yes, actually. Various people have seemed familiar to me. I had wondered if perhaps I had known someone like them once. But it seems it may only be a sort of 'deja vu'. They have not seen me before."
    This may by turns answer a part of Elly's questioning.

    As for the rest of it: she starts to shake her head, starts to say, "No, I only understand how I might do this or that. It seems..."

    And then trails out.

    "...No, that isn't quite right."

    She walks quietly over to a nearby small table and rests the mirror atop it, before perching primly on the edge of the bed. "I have... seen Volsung before. I cannot forget those eyes."
    Just the cold all around her and those eyes. Those dead, hateful eyes.

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